Free The Witch Hunter's Tale by Sam Thomas Page B

when business calls I must answer.”
    “I understand,” I said. “Were I summoned by a mother, I would abandon you in a moment.”
    Newcome laughed at the comparison. “It’s been like this for days,” he said, shaking his head in wonder. “I’ve got stacks of murder books I can’t give away, but if it’s about witches, it sells in an instant. The printer has hired another boy, but even so, he can hardly keep up. I can’t imagine what it will be like once the hangings start.”
    I could not help noticing that he did not say if the hangings start. A gust of wind flew through Bootham Bar and rattled the pages on Newcome’s board. One pamphlet escaped from his pack, and Newcome’s boy scampered after it. I pulled my cloak a little tighter, bid Newcome farewell, and started for home.
    *   *   *
    Sunday morning came, cold and dark. I stayed in my bed as long as I could, knowing that however cold I might be under my blankets, it would be worse when I climbed out. As the watery winter sun began to chase the shadows from my chamber, Elizabeth slipped into my bed and curled up beside me.
    “Must we go to church?” she asked.
    Elizabeth’s mother had never been a regular churchgoer, and like so many children Elizabeth found the ceremonies and sermons tedious at best and vexing at worst.
    “It is the law,” I said. “And it is good to pray to the Lord. He shall be very pleased to see you.”
    “But it’s so cold ,” she said. “Hannah says that God is in all places. If that is true, He can see me even if I am in the parlor next to the fire.”
    I bit my lip to keep from laughing.
    “We’ll be no colder than anyone else,” I said. “And it is best that all the parish shivers together. If we do not, we might forget the poor entirely, and if that happens, where will the nation be?”
    Will had spent the previous night at Mr. Breary’s, and sent word that he would attend church with him. As a result, Martha, Hannah, Elizabeth, and I had my pew to ourselves for the service. A few months earlier we’d buried old Mr. Wilson, who had served the parish for decades, and since that time we’d been visited by a variety of ministers. Those who came to us from neighboring parishes were not so bad, but most had travelled north from Cambridge with godly zeal boiling their blood. On this day, our minister was one of these. He was not much more than a youth by the look of him, but what he lacked in years he made up for in enthusiasm and volume. From his first words, he roared and shook, moaned and cried. Elizabeth grasped my hand as she stared in apprehension at the spectacle. I glanced at Martha from time to time, and I could see her growing impatient with the preacher, particularly when he finished the second hour of his sermon without showing signs of fatigue. He continued on for another half hour before setting us free.
    “My God, I thought he would never finish,” Martha whispered once we were safely on our way home. Elizabeth delighted in such blasphemy, of course, and even I had to suppress a smile when the two of them took to aping the preacher’s frantic arm waving, each one trying to surpass the other in outrageousness.
    When we returned for the afternoon service, we discovered that the same minister would preach again, and their smiles vanished. Martha moaned as he strode down the aisle and whispered that she hoped to get home before dark. And while none in the congregation was so vocal as she, I did not have to look far to find expressions of dismay on my neighbors’ faces. At the outset, his sermon seemed little different than the one he’d delivered that morning, full of hellfire and sin, but of little interest to any who were not already among the godly. I sat back in my pew and began to compose a list of medicines I would need from the apothecary.
    “All men know that God has revealed himself to man through his prophets, his patriarchs, and his apostles,” the preacher bellowed. “Today He